Guest Post: Brandeis University In the Sweet 16

When I was a senior at Brandeis University, the school had a basketball team reach the NCAA tournament for the first time. The cool part about that was I was also the Sports Director of WBRS, the campus radio station, so myself and a group of WBRSers drove up to Bowdoin College in Maine to broadcast the games. It was a thrill I'll never forget and I still will sometimes listen to the play-by-play I did for the second game, one of the most thrilling I ever covered (even though the Judges lost at the very end). Since my senior year, it has changed from a chance that Brandeis would make the tournament to an expectation.

So this year when my Alma Mater men's team made it, I wasn't too surprised. But I was surprised to see them sweep through their tough road matches and end up in the Sweet 16. So tonight, when Brandeis plays in the Sweet 16, I will be listening in to WBRS to hear a new generation of sportscasters broadcast the game. One of those broadcasters will be the current WBRS Sports Director, Adam Rosen. Adam has done great things with the department including having them travel all across the country to broadcast games and increasing the popularity of the station. He will be heading up to Williamstown, Massachusetts tonight, but before he does he was kind enough to write a guest blog post for us about the game:
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The Brandeis men's team has been fascinating to cover this year. After losing their two best players last year to graduation (Steve DeLuca and Kevin Olson), I think everyone was cautiously optimistic about the team this year. They have surpassed most people’s expectations, coming into this weekend's game(s) at 21-6. They finished second place in the UAA with a 9-5 Conference record.

Brandeis is a team that relies very heavily on its seniors: Kenny Small (14.2ppg), Terrell Hollins (13.6ppg) and Andre Roberson (10.7ppg). Hollins in particular has been a beast all yearlong, also averaging 10.1 boards despite just his 6'4'' frame. Hollins and Small both made the All-UAA First Team.

The Judges have overcome quite a bit of adversity this year. Obviously losing DeLuca and Olson was big, but they also had various issues with recruits (One got homesick and left the school, another suffered a serious injury, I think there were a few other random occurrences), and on the last road trip of the season they lost their starting center and second-tallest player Rich Magee for the season with an ankle injury. Magee is not the most offensively-gifted player in the world, but provided a solid defensive presence, and more importantly, great senior leadership.

The team started the season with just 10 players, two of whom were walk-ons and hardly ever played, before adding another player (a midyear) at the start of the second semester. Without Magee, Brandeis goes 7-deep, and in their second round win over St. John Fisher, Coach Meehan only played six players. Despite their lack of depth, fatigue has never been an issue with this team. Brandeis is extremely athletic and well-conditioned. Led on the court by the three seniors, you know you are going to see max. effort night in and night out. While Hollins is their only true inside scorer, Small and Vytas Kriskus (sophomore) are great outside shooters, and Roberson and Tyrone Hughes (sophomore) have proven to be very capable scorers at the guard position. Brandeis is outstanding from the FT line, shooting 75% from the charity stripe on the year.

The story from the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament for Brandeis was without question the outside shooting. After being held scoreless for the first time all-season on his Senior Day at Red Auerbach Arena, Kenny Small could not be contained in Brandeis' first two games. Small had 16 points (4-4 from downtown) in the First Round game vs. St. Lawrence and 14 points (4-5 from downtown) in the second game against host school St. John Fisher. Kriskus also came up huge for Brandeis, leading the team in scoring both nights with 29 points (career-high) the first game and 17 the second. The two combined to shoot an astonishing 17-23 from behind the arc. When any team shoots the ball as well as Brandeis did, they are virtually impossible to beat. Possibly overshadowed by Small and Kriskus was Hollins, who finished the second game with 16 points and a career-high 21 rebounds. Yes, that is 21 rebounds for a guy who is 6'4''.

Looking ahead to the Sweet 16, Brandeis plays Rhode Island College Friday night at 6pm on the campus of Williams College in Williamstown, MA. RIC is 22-7 on the year, so they are similar to Brandeis record-wise. They are a run n’ gun team, putting up close to 77ppg. Brandeis is generally at a size disadvantage against its opponents, especially since Magee went down, but the two teams are pretty even in that department. It should be an extremely entertaining game to be at from a fan’s perspective, but it is definitely a winnable game for Brandeis. The key to winning will be to slow the tempo of the game down and not cater to RIC’s style of play (which is no easy task). Brandeis certainly has the firepower to keep up with RIC, but because of Brandeis’ thin bench, they cannot allow RIC to run them out of the gym. If the scoring in this game is in the 80s then Brandeis is probably in trouble. To give you a sense for the type of team RIC is, they lost a game at Amherst College 105-84, a team Brandeis beat handily in Waltham earlier in the season and only allowed 55 points to. Granted, RIC is playing their best basketball of the season right now, having won all nine games since that loss, including knocking off the favored-Middlebury College last round. Should be a great game to be at. Brandeis is on a high coming off of their two double digit wins in the first two rounds, and the Seniors seem to have a killer instinct that they lacked before. I like Brandeis to win in a relatively high-scoring game (under 80 points though!). In fact, I have so much confidence that they will win that I am willing to give up doing a PxP in the Sweet 16 game so that I could do the potential Elite 8 game!

If Brandeis were to win, they would play the winner of Williams/SUNYIT, which will almost definitely be Williams. I think the dream ends for Brandeis in the Elite Eight, which would match the furthest the team has ever advanced in school history (2008 was the only other time). Williams, the #2 team in the country, would be coming into the E8 game at 28-1, including a perfect 19-0 at home. They shoot 52.4% from the field and a whopping 45.2% from downtown. It would take a near perfect effort for Brandeis to pull this one out, but hey, crazier things have happened, right? I was told Williams had about 1500 fans at their last game, so there would definitely be a homecourt edge.

Regardless of what happens this weekend, I think the season can be considered a huge success for Brandeis, especially given all of the adversity they have overcome this year. At this point in the season, I think Brandeis expects to win the Sweet 16 game, but probably realize the tough task that would be beating Williams on the road.

You can listen to the games live at www.wbrs.org (100.1FM for those in the Waltham area). I’ll be doing Color Commentary for the Sweet 16 and Play-by-Play (fingers crossed) if they advance to the Elite Eight, which would be Saturday night at 7pm. Any suggestions or comments about the broadcast can be directed to me at sports@wbrs.org!

Go Judges!

Picture from the Brandeis website